Outliner mode (similar to Logseq, Roam, Dynalist)

There are people around here that are infinitely more qualified than me to answer these questions, but here are my very humble opinions:

Outliner notes, I think. The plugin would have a whole file just for itself, with no risk of ever getting it ruined by an improper edit on the embedded content.

I know what I would like: infinite nesting, hoisting, compatibility with Obsidian’s wikilinks and block reference.

Probably not. Anyway, I think a plain text outliner would be a minimum viable product.

I’ve seen outliner exports relying on nothing but indentation or very simple syntax, so metadata shouldn’t be a dealbreaker. As for OPML, it is indeed a standard, but a pain for readability.

I don’t think 2 MB is an insane amount of text. But then again, the devs should be able to give you a clearer answer.

2 Likes

The same is true for me the other way around. I think that there are people who are more qualified than me to ask these questions. Since I have limited experience with Obsidian.

I would use Obsidian more if an outliner plugin is available. Especially if the outline plugin would support wikilinks / [[connections]] and block references.

Even without connections and block references an outliner plugin would be valuable since you can choose yourself if the data leaves your computer or not. One of my issues with Dynalist is the “cloud nature” - I prefer local, under my control.

Importing from Dynalist
If outliner notes would be supported, would importing go like this?

  1. The user will download a back-up from Dynalist
  2. The user will open and copy each txt document while keeping the indentation
  3. The user will copy the outlines into Obsidian notes

We need these basic features:

Basics

  • Infinite nesting
  • Hoisting
  • Save current view for next time automatically. If you come back to the outline the next time, it would look exactly the same as if you left it. If you left it when it was hoisted, and you return to the outline it will still be hoisted/zoomed.

Also

  • Compatibility with [[connections]] / wikilinks
  • Compatibility with block references
  • Possibility to change keyboard shortcuts
  • Set list density

Keyboard shortcuts

  • indent = tab
  • unindent = ⇧Tab
  • Expand/collapse = ⌘.
  • Zoom in = ⌘]
  • Zoom out = ⌘[
  • Delete item ⌘⇧⌫
  • Move item = ⌘⇧M
  • Swap with previous = ⌘↑
  • Swap with next = ⌘↓
  • Select item = ⌘A
    (The shortcuts are the same as in Dynalist, I don’t know if these interfere with current Obsidian shortcuts.)

Would this be a good start?

I have basic html and css knowledge but I gues that’s not enough to build an outliner plugin for Obsidian. Who can help to build an outliner plugin for Obsidian?

3 Likes

Logseq is a new plaintext md outliner that I’m using alongside obsidian… I wonder if the outliner plugin could be some sort of integration or lite version of logseq? That would be amazing…

7 Likes

logseq looks amazing, @andyfreeland I’ll give it a try, how do you make it work together with Obsidian? Do you open logseq files in Obisidian, or do you use them separetly? Thanks!

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Just to add a bit more clarity, I think an outliner would be more inclusive, in that atleast for me, outlining, as is done in Logseq where I can quickly and easily break down thoughts block by block, allow me to free up working memory. Which is crucial, particularly for those who already have a lower working memory or working memory challenges.

Having things automatically bulleted place of doing this myself frees up even more RAM. :wink:

3 Likes

Agreed. I’d even be happy with just a couple of features for now (tab in bullet text indents, and drag / drop bullets with children).

I put in a clean feature request here for these two features (but the moderator closed it):

Basic Outliner Features for Obsidian (tab & drag)

1 Like

+1 same

Not sure if anyone has seen this, but this plugin accomplishes some of the basic features that really go a long way: GitHub - vslinko/obsidian-outliner. It works well for me! However, block-level referencing is not quite up to par with more traditional block-level editors.

11 Likes

Excellent plugin!!
One thing I noticed:
When creating a new item with Enter key, indent of the existing item seems to be changed according to the indent of the next line.

before:

  • item 1 ← Enter at the beginning of the line
    • item 2

after:

  • (new item)
    • item 1
    • item 2

You should report issues to the plugin’s GitHub page. The author does not necessarily track discussion here (I’m not even sure they’re on the forum).

2 Likes

Thank you for your advice. I’ve tried to make a issue at GitHub.

1 Like

Hello! I’m here now :slight_smile:

I’ll check this thread and think about new features later.
If you want to track your ideas please create an issue on GitHub. I’ll appreciate it.

16 Likes

Thanks a lot for making this plugin!

How to use this plugin for new Obsidian users? I just updated to the latest version of Obsidian and made sure to activate Obsidian Outliner plugin.

I’ve made a list, like you can see below…


And I opened the preview where I can see an outline. But that outline is not editable like you can see in the demo.

How can I get the same view as on the demo that you can see here?

You can’t edit anything in preview mode… the reason there are normal looking bullets in the demo is because a css snippet was used to change the default styling of lists in edit mode. That snippet is included in the readme file here: GitHub - vslinko/obsidian-outliner: Work with your lists like in Workflowy or RoamResearch

4 Likes

Your plugin is Excellent!
And it will be perfect if expand/collapse item can be realized under preview mode.
The way of another plugin “jump to link” may help.

@vslinko Is there a reason that your plugin doesn’t intend as far as a press on tab does without the plugin?

plugin indent the same amount, there was a bug pre 1.0.18, now it should be fixed [BUG] Indents are single spaces since latest update · Issue #28 · vslinko/obsidian-outliner · GitHub

Thanks! Updating wasn’t enough, I had to toggle the Tab setting as suggested in the thread.

1 Like

THANKS FOR making this plugin!

I think this is exactly what I was looking for… coming from Workflowy, at first I thought Obsidian was going to be a self-hosted / local UPGRADED experience from Workflowy but when I first launched in it was nothing like it… reminded me more of a Typora / Ghostwriter fork.

After I started digging into things thought it became apparent Obsidian is an upgraded Typora monster… all sorts of great stuff to see.

Questions

  1. Does this plugin work / function with Shift + Enter note function from Workflowy?
  2. Might you know if you can easily “share” a note with someone perhaps, if you have a custom domain sycned up (sort of like publish.obsidian.md)?
  3. Is there an import feature so I can quickly migrate away from Workflowy?
  4. If I paste a link into the editor mode, how can I replicate (or truncate URL) the display similar to Workflowy so I see a down arrow nipple INSTEAD of the [] and () stuff?

This plugin didn’t work at first because I had some options disabled. These options, I believe, must be enabled for it to work? Perhaps add a note to new users to let them know certain settings must be enabled.

  • Smart indent list
  • Fold heading
  • Fold indent
  • stock theme (no community ones)

About shift + enter, there is a feature request about that, the developer might work on that later

The import thing- this is independent of the plugin itself, you could export your notes as markdown and open it in Obsidian, I used Dynalist for outlining, there were separate files, Workfowy has one long file I think?

You may want to check Logseq which could be used together with obsidian

1 Like